Terra

Communities at war over land disputes in Nigeria

Published in Monday March 18th, 2013 In In the media

Two communities have been at war for over five decades over a farmland between the them with the crisis claiming several lives and several others injured. Since the recent hostilities in the area, lives have been lost while several properties worth billions of naira have been destroyed. Early this year, about 13 Adadama people, both men and women including children were reportedly murdered, while some had their heads cut off as a result of the farmland dispute.

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Why Are We Funding Abuse in Ethiopia?

Published in Monday March 18th, 2013 In Opinion

In 2010, the Ethiopian government began moving thousands of people out of the rural villages where they had lived for centuries to other areas several hours’ walk away. The Ethiopian government calls this program the “Commune Center Development Plan and Livelihood Strategy” and claims it is designed to bring scattered rural populations closer to schools, health clinics, roads, and other public services. But the Commune Center program has been marked by a string of human rights abuses linked to government attempts to clear huge tracts of land for foreign investors. According to testimony collected by Human Rights Watch and other groups over the past two years, the relocations have involved beatings, imprisonment, torture, rape, and even murder. In many of the new “villages” the program has created, the promised services do not exist. Deprived of the farms, rivers, and forests that once provided their livelihoods, many people fear starvation, and thousands have fled to refugee camps in Kenya and South Sudan.

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Threats to right to food and ancestral sovereignty over territory

Published in Monday March 18th, 2013 In In the media

Indigenous Communities and Organizations for the Ancestral Forest, made up of about twenty Mapuche groups, presented on March 11 a declaration directed to the United Nations Special Rapporteurs Oliver De Schutter, about the right to food, and Raquel Rolnik, about the right to housing, denouncing the damaging effects of the Chilean forest policy, which endangers their right to food and ancestral sovereignty over their territory.

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Assessing the effectiveness of World Bank investments – The Gender Dimension

Published in Thursday March 14th, 2013

Today it is widely acknowledged that increasing the gender sensitivity of development aid increases its effectiveness. The report “Assessing the effectiveness of World Bank investments – The Gender Dimension” evaluates the extent to which the World Bank integrates gender concerns into its policies and investments, pointing out structural, financial and policy gaps that risk negatively impacting women in countries with Bank investments.

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Villagers threatened with eviction

Published in Wednesday March 13th, 2013 In In the media

Resettled villagers in the Chitora area of Ward 1 in Shurugwi North are set to lose their farmland and livelihoods over their political affiliation. The area is home to hundreds of people given the relatively fertile farmland by the government. However, according to sources, MDC members have been threatened with eviction by their rivals in Zanu (PF).

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Restituting the land to the Endorois People: a 40-year process

Published in Saturday March 9th, 2013 In Social movement news

In November 2012, members of the Adjudication Working Group at ESCR-Net facilitated a strategic meeting with leaders of the Endorois community in Kenya, focused on advancing full implementation of the unprecedented recommendations issued by the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights regarding the evictions. The meeting brought together human rights lawyers, activists, and academics from Kenya, South Africa and the US with expertise on enforcement of court decisions.

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“Don’t finance forced evictions”

Published in Friday March 8th, 2013 In Social movement news

Right now, over 1,000 people in Lagos, Nigeria, are under threat of being kicked out of their homes with nowhere to go. One mass eviction has already happened, and more could happen any day. People in this situation recently won unexpected support from the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Raquel Rolnik. She criticized her colleagues at the World Bank for failing to bring its safeguarding policies for loans to fund development projects in line with international human rights standards.

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Side-event on the right to housing in Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories

Published in Thursday March 7th, 2013 In News on the Rapporteurs

On March 4th, the Special Rapporteur Raquel Rolnik participated in an expert roundtable with human rights defenders entitled “The Violation of Housing, Land, and Planning Rights in Israel and the OPT: Expert Testimonies from the Field”. The side-event was organized by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, the Norwegian Refugee Council and Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, during the 22nd session of the UN Human Rights Council.

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Local Leaders Hold Consultation On Land Rights Policy in Liberia

Published in Monday March 4th, 2013 In In the media

The three-days regional consultation on Land Rights Policy which began at the Zwedru Multilateral High School which was climaxed at the Zwedru City Hall brought together Superintendents of Sinoe and Grand Gedeh Counties. The consultation was also attended by elders, chiefs, youth, and women from various districts and chiefdoms.

Unity State Returnees Given Land After Two Year Wait in Sudan

Published in Monday March 4th, 2013 In In the media

Nearly 900 returnees have been allocated land in Bentiu town for the first time after two years of being stranded in the state upon arrival from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, ahead of South Sudan’s independence in July 2011. On Friday officials from the oil-rich state officially handed over four blocks of land to the returnees. For the past two years returnees have been stranded at Bentiu Port and Transit camp just eight kilometres from Bentiu town. The transit camp housed 400-500 people.